It takes a special breed of person to thrive in public schools (and most private schools) today.
The qualities that allow students to thrive in school aren’t the qualities that make a great student.
Students that are traditionally “good students” tend to be obedient, laid-back, and polite.
There is nothing wrong with those qualities.
They’re just more appropriate for schooling than learning.
Certain qualities are signs of intelligence despite not being appreciated in school:
- Skepticism
- Curiosity
- Passion
- Focus
- Energy
Humans didn’t evolve for thousands of years to thrive in a classroom environment.
They evolved to survive in the real world actually solving day to day problems.
Memorizing long lists of random information is useless for that. Remembering locations and important skills is natural.
What schools consider a good student does not make a strong student when it comes to the real world.
This Is What Students Are
Most people think about students in a school context.
The average person spends over a decade in the classroom. School isn’t the only means that can make someone a student.
Students can be self-directed or even mentor directed in a subject.
Heck, students can have no plan for learning and just follow their whims in a particular subject.
When a student is the average good student in school, it says nothing about their potential.
It doesn’t mean they’ll be a good student outside of school.
The same goes for typical bad students.
The qualities that they need to be great students in the real world can lead to struggling in a school environment.
Intelligent students can end up getting shunned and treated like bad students. Of course, that just leads to the student becoming less and less motivated to try and be a good student.
The problem just stacks on itself and some of the smartest students end up getting subpar grades.
What Does A Bad Student Look Like?
There are qualities that traditionally bad student have that actually are signs of intelligence.
Not having these qualities doesn’t mean a person is wrong but having them isn’t wrong either.
These are qualities that are not treated kindly in the average school environment.
Some are attacked.
In those cases, these qualities may not be as visible in the student because the student is hiding it.
Some are qualities that are largely ignored by school. They end up being the qualities most bad students curl up into.
Piercing Skepticism
After decades of education, if a student is still skeptical of what their teachers say, he or she is an unusual student.
Teachers are not the know-all and be-all of their subjects.
They’re human beings.
Sure, teens are getting boosts of new hormones get excessive with their skeptical rebellions but skepticism is something that almost no students at an older age have enough of.
That’s expected in the environment though.
Skepticism is often attacked by teacher equivalents of “because I said so.”
This is often because teachers take it as a sign of disrespect.
Traditional lesson plans don’t leave much room for tangents of a single students whims.
In a classroom of 30 students, this is bound to be a problem at times.
That’s why students are taught to just accept the teacher’s statements as fact.
This skepticism can be catastrophic to a student.
They need to manage it carefully.
Good luck getting good grades when your teachers think you’re an ass. 😛
Laser Focus
I remember looking into my friend’s face in class. His eyes were glazed over. His mouth was open a little. He was staring off so far into space that he seemed caught in another planet’s gravitational pull.
I waved my hand in front of him.
Nothing happened.
I waved my hand closer in front of him.
He closed his eyes and squeezed them together.
When he opened them he said he was just thinking about something.
I didn’t know this guy well enough to know many things about him but this guy could focus.
Focus is one of the most powerful skills that anyone can have.
It’s not even for completely understandable reasons.
The simple ability to focus on a set of facts is ability enough to solve a problem related to them.
For example, you may not know the correct mathematical procedure to solve a math problem but if you let your brain mull over the details long enough, the secret sometimes just comes to you from plain old logic.
For many different reasons, some students take their focus away from school.
Perhaps they don’t enjoy school.
Maybe they got annoyed by a teacher.
Better yet, they might just have more important things in their life.
When they took their focus away from school, they moved their focus into some other area of their life.
Some bad or good students just let their brains fade in and out of school work. That lets the students learn a little bit from the teacher every now and then.
A student skilled at focusing can ignore the teacher completely.
Their brain says they have better things to focus on.
The better the student is at focusing, the less random teacher stimuli gets stuck in their head.
The less random stimuli they get, the worse their grades end up being.
Naturally, some great focusers focus on school to improve their grades dramatically.
Impeccable Priorities
Focus helps point out one of the most important qualities many bad students thrive in.
Focusing on something other than school can be a sign that the student has thought out priorities.
A student that loves music might want to become a rock musician.
That guy knows that sitting in history class isn’t going to do much good in that career.
This student shows up because they have to. Then he focuses on music.
School doesn’t matter to them.
That’s an effective use of priorities. Whether it is intelligent or not is up for debate.
Many students never learn how to use priorities for school.
School may be a top priority for the student.
It may just be because they’ve been doing what they’ve been told.
The student has no evidence that it is important.
The student just does what they’re told in hopes to survive another day.
This is a skill that, when a student is interested in school, can lead to great grades without too much effort.
World Class Motivation
The biggest problem that many bad students have when it comes to school is motivation in school.
They can’t convince themselves to care enough to actually put effort into their grades.
If you put these students in a situation that they’re actually interested in learning in then their results improve.
Of course, if you are that bad student, then there are things you can do to get yourself more motivated for school.
One of them is to start ignoring most of the clichés the schools throw at you.
If they were the ones to demotivate you, don’t expect them to remotivate you. They failed.
This blog can get you that motivation.
You may need to find some completely different reason.
That’s something that depends on you.
Sometimes effectiveness can massively improve your motivation.
Learning is a long and complicated process but memorizing information is quick and easy.
Learning to memorize better can increase your motivation.
It’s a lot easier to get motivated to spend a few minutes memorizing than a few hours studying.
If you are a good student, remember that the things that make you skilled in school won’t make you skilled in life.
Sure, you can keep up your polite acceptance to help you get through school.
When you get out of that environment, everything is going to change.
Be prepared.
Image Sources: icanchangethisright, 56866338@N06, pagedooley, bennylee, iggyshoot, jointhedots, 16961193@N06
Leave Procrastination In The Dust! Never EVER let it stop you again.
Doing stuff is easy – sometimes, right?
You only procrastinate the stuff that sucks. You don’t say, “Ahhh… I’ll read that text from my crush later.” Nope. Now… Any pause is intentional and coordinated to respond better.
Here is the problem with academics:
You probably think most academic stuff sucks – at least a little. (Especially compared to other things you could be doing.)
And the thing is:
FORCING YOURSELF TO STUDY JUST MAKES IT WORSE!
You’re slowly hardening your association of school and being miserable.
You need to create positive associations with academics. You want your brain to be getting hyped up and positive when you’re thinking about studying and giving into this internal oligarchical instinct to force yourself to studying – ain’t helpin’.
Chill the internal dictator for a moment…
A big secret: You need to STOP forcing yourself to study so much.
But, if you’re not forcing yourself then how are you going to see those killer straight-a’s that you’re always pining over?
It’s not difficult but it can sound weird to unfamiliar eyes.
Get your copy of my book about How To Get Happier Straight A’s.
It only costs $4.99 (and if these strategies don’t work like magic like it has for thousands of other students then you can get a full refund.)
Very good article! We are linking to this particularly great content on our site. Keep up the great writing.
This is the perfect webpage for anybody who would like to find out about this topic. You realize so much its almost tough to argue with you (not that I personally will need to…HaHa). You definitely put a new spin on a topic that has been discussed for ages. Wonderful stuff, just great!
You should be a part of a contest for one of the best websites on the internet.I most certainly will highly recommend this blog!
Thanks for the good write up. It in fact used to be a enjoyment account it. Look advanced to more brought agreeable from you!However, how could we keep up a correspondence?
Very nice post. I just stumbled upon your blog and wanted to say that I have really enjoyed surfing around your blog posts. After all I’ll be subscribing to your rss feed and I hope you write again very soon!
I couldn’t resist commenting. Perfectly written!
Its like you read my mind! You appear to know so much about this, like you wrote the book in it or something.I think that you could do with some pics to drive the messagehome a little bit, but other than that, this is fantastic blog.A fantastic read. I’ll certainly be back.
I simply want to mention I’m all new to blogs and actually enjoyed this web page. Very likely I’m likely to bookmark your website . You surely come with tremendous posts. Regards for sharing your web page.
Hello! I could have sworn I’ve been to this web site before but after browsing through a few of the articles I realized it’s new to me. Regardless, I’m definitely pleased I found it and I’ll be book-marking it and checking back often!
There’s certainly a great deal to find out about this topic. I love all of the points you have made.
Greetings! Very useful advice in this particular article! It is the little changes that will make the most important changes. Thanks a lot for sharing!
Hello, just wanted to mention, I loved this blog post.
I think this is among the most vital info for me. And i am glad reading your article. But want to remark on some general things, The website style is ideal, the articles is really nice : D. Good job, cheers
Keep up the good work, thanks!
Can I simply say what a comfort to uncover an individual who genuinely knows what they’re discussing on the net. You actually understand how to bring a problem to light and make it important. More and more people should check this out and understand this side of your story. It’s surprising you are not more popular because you surely possess the gift.
An intriguing discussion is definitely worth comment. I think that you ought to publish more about this issue, it may not be a taboo matter but typically people do not talk about these subjects. To the next! Cheers!!
I wish to express my appreciation for your generosity giving support to those individuals that must have assistance with this important topic. Your real commitment to passing the solution up and down had become exceedingly productive and has usually empowered most people much like me to attain their aims. Your entire informative tips and hints signifies a whole lot to me and a whole lot more to my colleagues. Best wishes; from everyone of us.
Hello! Would you mind if I share your blog with my twitter group? There’s a lot of folks that I think would really appreciate your content. Please let me know. Many thanks
It’s really a cool and helpful piece of information. I am happy that you justshared this useful info with us. Please stay us informed likethis. Thank you for sharing.
Appreciate your other sorts of wonderful article. The spot in addition may any one obtain that style of facts in their normal perfect means of composing? I have a display future full week, and i’m for the seek out such information.
I was and still am so skeptimistic about everything. Maybe I was a “bad student”. I’ve found it to be a great quality though because not believing what I was being thought made me curious enough to research it myself to gain a better understanding.
I always think of it like this:
Intelligence is good for school grades up to a certain point. At a certain point they become counterproductive and your grades would start going down. Instead of being stimulated by the material you get bored by the material. Of course, getting bad grades doesn’t mean you’re too intelligent but it could mean that.